A judge sides with Seminole commissioners in their battle with the county’s Clerk of Courts and Comptroller Grant Maloy by ordering the clerk to follow the commission’s direction on investing hundreds of millions of dollars of surplus tax money.

Clerk ordered to invest tax funds as directed

An Orange County judge sided with Seminole commissioners in their year-long tug-of-war with the county’s Clerk of Courts and Comptroller Grant Maloy by ordering the clerk to follow the commission’s direction on investing hundreds of millions of dollars of surplus tax money.

“The judge was very, very clear that the county’s legal position was unassailably correct,” County Commission Chairman John Horan said. “It’s just a shame that we had to pay taxpayer money to take him to court to tell him to follow the law.”

Maloy said Thursday he plans to appeal the order by Circuit Court Judge Frederick Lauten to the 5th District Court of Appeal early next week. “This is an unprecedented attempt to remove oversight that clerks and comptrollers have over tax dollars,” said Maloy, elected in 2016. “When I ran for office, I promised to be the taxpayers’ watchdog, and this ruling would destroy transparency. It’s turning over $500 million of taxpayers’ money to a private firm with little or no oversight or accountability.”

Soon after taking office in January 2017, he asserted that his job as comptroller was to make the dayto-day investment decisions on as much as $460 million in taxpayer money. But county commissioners maintained that state law gives them that authority by requiring them to set up a basic investment policy for the surplus funds, then directing the clerk to follow that policy.

Commissioners decided to file a lawsuit in September after failing to come to an agreement with Maloy on the issue.

Most property taxes are paid between November and March. Much of that revenue is then held in “surplus” by the clerk of the courts office until the county draws from it throughout the year to pay expenses via bank checks from the clerk’s office. Before being spent, however, surplus funds must be invested to earn income for the public’s benefit.

In 1995, Seminole handed that investment responsibility — based on the county’s investment policy — to the clerk of the courts office. Maryanne Morse was the clerk at that time.

But after she announced she would retire at the end of 2016, commissioners said they would take back that financial investment responsibility. The county then hired Public Trust Advisors, an Orlando investment firm, last year.

Still, Maloy refused to give up control.

In his order Wednesday, Lauten disagreed with Maloy, saying the clerk has the “ministerial duty to invest the surplus funds in accordance with the Board’s [county commission] investment policy.” He then mandated that Maloy invest all surplus county funds “in full compliance” with the investment directions laid out by commissioners within five days or by March 7.

“We knew that we were right all along,” Horan said. “The law was clearly on our side.”

In Orange County, the elected comptroller — with the guidance of a five-member committee — oversees and makes day-to-day investment decisions on $1.8 billion in county funds.